


A Len in the Lake

by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Arthurian, Crack, Fix-It, M/M, Permanently Unfinished, Time Travel, but not a time travel fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21721609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/robininthelabyrinth
Summary: What happens when you let a thief loose in the Oculus?He steals stuff.And then he doesn't die, and things get weird.
Relationships: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart
Comments: 24
Kudos: 328





	A Len in the Lake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daughter_of_Scotland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_Scotland/gifts).



Being a thief of long standing, Len has - among other useful traits like agile fingers and a remarkable capacity for impromptu bullshitting - a fifth sense for what things are valuable.

An instinct, really, or maybe it's best described a homing beacon.

So when Sara refuses his first request to exit the Vanishing Point at high speed - a request born of terror at the idea of going up against the people who turned Mick into a stranger, a soulless slave called Kronos, and could potentially do the same to other people - Len falls back on his usual first response and searches for valuables.

Technically, they're looking for their friends to rescue, and Len fully intends to do that should he find them, but in the meantime there's no harm, surely, in looking around a little?

Sara might've disagreed, but they agreed to split up (to more easily search for the others) so it’s not like she’s there to stop him.

He finds what he later, to his sorrow, learns is called the Oculus; the first time he sees it, he merely thinks that a strange device on the island in the off-center building surrounded by a skeleton crew of guards and armed with a number of futuristic alarms (which Len rather enjoys dismantling) must contain things which are quite valuable.

There _is_ a panel in the back of the strange device, in fact, but the only thing inside is an old wooden cup and an equally old looking broadsword in a battered old scabbard.

Len assumes he's found the wrong panel, but since he's here already, and, since he rather thoroughly dislikes the Time Masters for what they did to Mick, he grabs the cup anyway. It doesn’t really look like much, but it's _almost_ a chalice, and Mick had so very much liked the chalice he'd had back in the doomed hellscape of 2046. Where all their problems had begun, or at least come to light, and where Len had put Mick on the road to suffering and hatred and pain.

Least Len can do, really, is to get him another.

He has no need for a sword, though, so when it resists his first few tentative tugs, he leaves it be. The cup goes into a pocket - the parka he left back in the Waverider (or possibly 2017, with Barry, he’s not actually sure), but all of his coats have many and very voluminous pockets for an excellent reason.

A good pickpocket’s habits die hard, after all.

He finds the others - all but Mick, who (he's not going to lie) was the one he was looking for.

Mick finds him.

Kronos finds him, actually, but scratch the surface and it's Mick still, to Len's overwhelming relief.

Such relief persists, and comes with him, and is with him right up until they're back at the Oculus, and Mick says "I'm staying", at which point the relief turns into sheer terror.

Len can't lose Mick again.

He _can't_.

But he thinks, in his heart, that perhaps Mick can - and perhaps would be better to - lose him, the one who caused him such pain, and for such stupid reasons, reasons Len can't even really remember anymore.

So he cracks his gun over Mick's head, taking his decision away one last time in a sick and sad echo of what he’d done before, gives him his ring and his gun, and gives all three to Sara to take back to the Waverider; and then he puts his hands in the guts of the machine and waits for the end.

The end, annoyingly, is preceded by the appearance of a number of angry Time Masters, here to interfere with Len's incredibly stupid plan to sacrifice himself before he has to properly apologize to Mick for being a terrible partner who took away his choices, and also coincidentally save the world, and – here’s the _particularly_ annoying part – Len's already given away his cold gun.

That's an issue, since Len doesn't know how long he needs to hold them off until the explosion.

Well, it's an issue right until he remembers the sword.

The stupid sword that wouldn't so much as budge for him earlier.

Weirdly enough, the handle (hilt? Len's not exactly up on his sword terminology) of the sword is right there inside the guts of the machine, and while technically Len needs two hands to hold the various odds and ends that Ray said needed to be held down to overcome the failsafe and let the bomb go off, he's always had good, agile thief hands. He can wiggle around and stretch a pinky to cover up one last connection, and that frees up his second hand to grab the not-sharp-end-of-the-sword-piece-thingy.

Len is _really_ not up on his sword terminology.

He also doesn't know how to fight with a sword, not even a little, but that's fine; he just needs to wave it threateningly at the Time Masters so they'll stay away from him long enough for the timer to go off.

The sword –

The sword is stuck.

"Oh, come _on_!" Len exclaims, less at the sword than at the concept of destiny or luck or whatever the hell he's grappling with here. "I'm trying to _save the world_ here -" And Mick, but then again, he’s Len's whole world, so it isn't even that much of a lie. "- can't you cut me even a little break?!"

Oddly enough, the sword he's tugging on seems to actually give in a bit at that, moving a few inches, but moving slowly and stickily, like it's reluctant to give in entirely.

"Listen to me, you stupid metal stick," Len hisses at it, perfectly aware that he's maybe gone a little unreasonable in his growing terror that this whole sacrifice shit might turn out to be for nothing, _and_ that the Time Masters would then have him in their brainwashing clutches, "you might be okay being stuck here letting a bunch of assholes screw up all of history to match their own interests, but I'm not! They tortured and brainwashed my Mick, and I'm going to stick it to them if I have to use my bare hands to do it!"

The sword gives in and comes out, battered old scabbard and all.

Whatever.

It's oblong and heavy and Len can still try to bash someone in the head with it.

Certainly the Time Masters seem adequately aware of that risk, since those closest to Len seem to be slowing down, their eyes widening in utter horror, their mouths screaming "No!" in denial -

And that's when the explosion goes off.

Len feels it, warmth on his hands, and he's always wanted to go out with a pithy quip - sadly, the best he can come up with in the heat of the moment is, "There are no strings on me."

Going out on a Disney quote.

Yeah, okay, while it is definitely apt and well-time and everything, Len's still kinda happy that everyone here that could serve as a witness is probably going to be dead in a minute or two.

In fact, Len can see them vaporizing in the heat of the blast.

…actually, on second thought, that’s a little concerning.

What’s particularly concerning is that he can see more and more of them dissolving into puffs of dust, while he, who is standing nearer to the center of the rapidly expanding explosion and bracing himself with the entirely reasonable expectation that he would be going first, is rather notably _not_ doing the same.

In fact, other than the fact that the sword and scabbard he's holding have started shining like a freaking _lightsaber_ , he's doing just fine.

Len's starting to get the idea that he might've grabbed something more than a simple sword when all of a sudden the ground underneath him gives way and he's falling.

Falling first through rock, then what looks suspiciously like the green swirls of light that surround the Waverider when it's flying through space, and then through water.

Water?!

Oh _fuck_ no.

Len has only had about three swimming classes in his whole life, two of which were conducted by Mick after the other man had jokingly tossed him into the sea off their balcony when they were in Aruba for their honeymoon, only to jump in after him in a hurry when Len had screamed that he didn't know how to swim. Or tread water. Or - anything, really.

He knows just enough to know that there is water, he is currently beneath it, and he should remedy that situation imminently through the means of kicking his legs really hard.

His head breaks surface.

He gasps for air, then tries to take stock of his situation.

He's in a lake.

There's a pretty lady and some guys in old style renaissance festival outfits standing at the edge of said lake. All of them are gawking at him.

None of them are helping him.

Len goes under the water again for a second, then – more by panicked force of will than any actual intentional action on his part – resurfaces. “Help me!” he shouts.

"Throw the king the sword," the lady shouts back.

"I'll throw it point first at you, lady, if you don't help me out!" Len shouts right back at her, and then promptly sinks back under the surface for another second.

He hates water _so much_.

“Throw it!”

“If you don’t come fucking help me, I’m just going to _drop_ it in here!”

"Swim forward!" one of the guys helpfully shouts.

"I can't swim!" Len shouts. "Obviously! _Asshole_!"

One of them strips off a bit and jumps in, which is very nice and highly appreciated of him, swims over to Len and starts dragging Len back to shore, Len spluttering and soaked through and yowling curses like an angry cat the whole time.

He doesn’t like water, okay?

"This wasn't quite what I thought was meant by being given a sword by the Lady du Lac," the guy that is rescuing him gasps. He looks a bit like Mick, actually, but only in a distant vague I-miss-him-already sort of way – something of the nose and the ears and the space between the eyes. “I wasn’t expecting someone like, well, _you_ to be involved at all, really. Whoever you are.”

"You're still in range of me, you know," Len reminds him.

"In range of what, you shaking off water on me and half-drowning yourself?"

Len elbows him in the ribs, even knowing it'll result in an immediate dunking.

Pride goeth before the fall, as they say.

(He’s pretty sure that’s not what they mean, but what the hell does he know, he’s Jewish. Black and Jewish, which explains both the casual irreverence and the inability to swim.)

Eventually they both reach the shore, panting and exhausted.

"Can I have the sword now?" the guy says plaintively.

"Enjoy," Len says, because he does not even _slightly_ care right now, and shoves it at him. "Be careful, it glows sometimes."

"I'll – uh – keep that in mind," the guy says, taking it. He looks at it, seeing the battered scabbard and the not-so-shiny hilt and sighs, obviously disappointed. "Well, at least it's magic. Even if the obtaining of it wasn't exactly very magical."

"When you tell everyone about it, say I was a pretty girl," Len suggests. He's taking beautiful breaths of beautiful air, and, as mentioned, does not particularly care about much right now.

"The Lady du Lac is pretty, but rather too well known to start saying that I caught her swimming," the guy says, nodding at the lady currently marching stridently towards them, the other three guys in tow.

"Then don’t say it’s her, obviously. Just say that a mysteriously appearing figure in lake tossed it to you," Len says, then smirks. "Just remember: a watery tart in a shallow grave is no form of a basis for a system of government."

"Luckily I got my system of government out of a rock instead," the guy says, laughing. "Which I must admit is nearly as bad. But then it broke, so I needed a replacement."

Len’s not sure how one breaks a system of government outside of the usual corrupt politician stuff, but shrugs and says, "Well, if you started with a rock, why not try a lake next? Seems thematic enough – earth, water...next time you can do wind and fire."

"Thematic indeed,” the guy says, sniggering a little. “Well, why not? It makes as much sense as anything else does. I think I will use your idea after all. The bards will appreciate it, if nothing else."

"You do that," Len agrees, and flops backwards onto the grass. "I'm just going to close my eyes for a bit now."

"What, _here_?"

"I'm tired."

"You're still in your wet things; you'll catch cold!" the guy protests. Secret mother hen, just like Mick, jeez. Len wonders if they’re related somehow.

"I'm tired," Len repeats stubbornly. "I've had a very stressful day."

"I fought two giants to get here!"

"Yeah? They do anything to deserve it?"

The guy looks lost. "What?"

"Giants. They do anything to you?” Len clarifies. “Or is this the sort of fairytale where the hero always defeats any assorted magical creature - helpfully standing in for the Other, thereby creating an innately xenophobic cultural system in which the in-group is supported right or wrong and the out-group invariably demonized?"

Because this place, wherever it is, is clearly not _reality_.

Len’s open to it maybe being a dream or something, maybe some fucked-up uncomfortable afterlife thing, maybe an alternate universe or something, but reality it’s definitely not.

"I like you," the guy says, thereby further proving that it is, in fact, not reality. Len’s never made a good first impression on anyone in his life, excluding Mick. "My name's Art."

"Len," Len replies. "Leonard, technically, but Len's fine."

He closes his eyes.

“Len,” Art says thoughtfully. “So that makes you, what, the Len of the Lake?”

Len cracks an eye open long enough to glare.

"You _really_ ought to change before you rest," Art adds.

"Yeah, wise guy? _Make_ me," Len says.

That might have been a bad idea.

Art solves this by _picking_ Len up, which Len would protest except that it gets him a piggy-back ride back to a nearby castle and dumped into a nice heated bath.

(Okay, okay, he does complain, but Art tells him about there being a heated bath in his future and Len shuts up because he’s not going to say no to a free bath in a real bathtub. The Waverider is adequate in many ways, but it has a strong preference for shower stalls.)

The other guys – a dark-skinned guy who can't stop grinning, and two larger guys who look disapproving – come along with them. The two disapproving ones spend a fair bit of time complaining about Len's unexpected and unvetted presence.

Mostly the tall, serious, even-more-disapproving one.

"Oh, shut up, Beddy," Art - who'd ultimately hopped into the nice big steaming hot bath as well - says. "It's _fine_. He nearly drowned. That’s hardly suspicious."

"Our enemies -" the shorter but broader guy starts to say.

"Kay, _please_. He's clearly not Roman. Are you Roman?"

"Only in my pizza preferences,” Len says with a yawn.

"See?"

"I think he's unbalanced," the first guy, Beddy, grumbles. "Also, what's 'pizza'?"

"He's not unbalanced," the brown-skinned guy says, speaking up for the very first time. "He's from the future. Sorry about that," he adds. "I wasn't really paying attention to where the Lady and I were summoning the sword from."

Len waves a forgiving hand. He's still alive, which is more than he expected.

He’ll worry about the whole ‘summoning’ business later.

He can worry about _everything_ later, for that matter; preferably after he gets some sleep. He's so tired, he doesn't even care about Art seeing his scars, and that's usually something he cares about very much.

They let him crash in a bed after (“let” meaning that Beddy and Kay objected loudly to giving Len one and Art said “fine he can have mine” and the last still-unnamed guy just sniggered the whole time) and from that point on, Len only hears a few further snatches of conversation.

"- can't trust him -"

"- a warrior of some variety -"

"- no weapon that I've seen -"

"- irrelevant -"

"- think of the _Sword_."

Len falls asleep.

He wakes up to someone bouncing onto the bed.

“Lisa, go to hell,” Len says automatically, and then opens his eyes with a squint. The dark-skinned man from yesterday, the one Len never got the name of, is beaming down at him. “Not Lisa. What’re you doing on my bed?”

“Technically, it’s Art’s bed,” the guy says. “My name’s Merle –” At least Len thinks that’s what he says; the guy has an accent like nobody’s business. Is he from New Zealand or something? Do they even have New Zealand here? “– and I want to know _everything_.”

“Get a good encyclopedia and start with ‘a’,” Len recommends.

Merle rolls his eyes. “About the _future_.”

“Uh,” Len says, remembering as he wakes up the rest of the way. Oculus, sword, falling... “Hey, where’s my stuff?”

Merle points to where everything’s been dumped in the corner. “We convinced Bedievere and Kay not to go through it,” he says. “It was hung up to dry, though. And then Art pitched it in here. He was trying not to wake you up, but he’s something of an elephant sometimes. Luckily, you were out cold.”

“How long did I sleep?”

“Only two days.”

“ _Two days_?”

“I knew a woman who slept for fifteen years after travelling in time,” Merle says. “You have it _easy_. Tell me about the future!”

“…we have better mattresses?”

Merle gives him a Look.

“What? We do! I don’t know what you want from me; it’s not like I carry around a guide to the future with me.”

Merle gives a long-suffering sigh. “Maybe if I asked some questions...”

“In the meantime, how about you answer some of mine?” Len says. “Like ‘what was that about summoning’ and ‘will you get out of the room so I can get dressed, I’m naked under here’?”

“Oh, no need to worry about that, you’re very attractive,” Merle assures him. “If immensely irritating.”

Len rolls his eyes. “Art seemed to like me well enough.”

“Yes, he does, which is a great point in your favor. He likes you rather a lot,” Merle says. “Which is, to be frank, the only reason you’re here in the master bedroom instead of in a dungeon.”

“Dungeon,” Len says flatly, then shrugs. What’s it to him? He can break out of any prison. “Wait, if you have a dungeon – what era is this?”

“The age of heroes,” Merle says grandly.

“Uh, no,” Len says. “ _I’m_ from the age of heroes. Got a cute little red one all to myself, back in Central. What _year_ is it?”

“Oh, you’re no fun. What type of calendar do you use? Julian? Celtic?”

“Um,” Len says, wracking his brain. He has no idea what the calendar he uses is called, other than ‘the usual one’, and he’s pretty sure that if they’re discussing calendar types than he’s not in an era that necessarily recognizes it. Is he even in BC or AD? Actually, that gives him an idea. “Could you tell me the year in the Hebrew calendar? Uh, Jewish calendar, land of Israel calendar...”

Merle looks delighted and also like he understands what Len meant, which, good, because communication is hard.

“Excellent choice,” he says. “Originally inspired by the Babylonian, I believe? Very old, very reliable, based on the moon. Per that calendar, it is currently the 19th of Nisan, in the year 4243.”

Len does some mental calculations. “So it’s...sometime in April...in the year...wait. The year's _483_?! As in, four, without even a one before it?!”

“I assume you're talking about another calendar. What year are you from, using the calendar we have in common?”

“5776,” Len says, making a face. He only remembers that because he’d thought 5775 was a funny palindrome all of the previous year. “Over a millennia into your future – wait. How are we even talking? Shouldn’t you guys be all speaking Beowulf Anglo-Saxon or something?”

Maybe his translator-pill-from-the-Waverider is still in effect?

“Oh, I imposed a general translator spell on all of the knights,” Merle says airily, like that's even a thing normal people say, but hey - metas and time travel, Len's in no position to throw stones. “It helps international relations. Well, sometimes. The Romans hate it because it doesn’t translate the way they say things exactly as they said them, it translates it into whatever the person really _means_ , and Latin is apparently very subtle about these things.”

“Wait, does that mean no puns?” Len asks, distracted. “Because that’s awful.”

“No, no, puns translate.”

“Good, because it’d be a real _pun_ ishment to go without.”

Merle just stares at Len for a long moment. “I see why you get along with Art,” he finally says. “Also, I’m suddenly regretting my decision to cast that translation spell now.”

“Not my fault I’ve got a _pun_ -chant for puns that’s entirely _pun_ -stoppable.”

“I think I hate you.”

“What? You don’t think I’m – _punny_?”

“I’m leaving now.”

“Come back!” Len shouts after the fleeing man. “You didn’t even explain the whole spell thing!”

No good, he’s gone.

Well, at least that means Len can get dressed now.

He’s just managed to slide his jacket back on when Art pops his head in. He’s less sopping wet now, but he still looks an awful lot like Mick if Mick decided he wanted to grow hair and the prickly start of a beard again, so he’s unmistakable. “You got Merlin to go running!” Art says cheerfully. He has a ridiculous booming voice the way Mick does; Len is struck by a pang of distinct homesickness immediately. “You _have_ to teach me how you did that. I can never get him to go away and leave me alone, no matter what I try.”

“Merle didn’t appreciate the finesse of my sense of humor, that’s all,” Len says with a faint smirk. “Don’t suppose you can tell me about this whole spell business? He left before answering any of my questions.”

“You’ll find that he does that. Constantly. Very annoying. What spell?”

“He said something about summoning the sword, some sort of translator spell, that sort of thing? How’s he doing ‘em? He a meta or something?”

“No, he’s a wizard,” Art says. “Try not to overthink it; I certainly don’t.”

Len is unable to keep himself from smiling. That’s such a Mick way of looking at the world.

Well, they _are_ currently in the 5th century. Maybe Mick’s a distant descendant?

"Anyway, I'm glad you're awake," Art continues. "Now we can finally head home."

"This isn't your home?"

"No, this is the castle of the Lady du Lac, which she has graciously permitted us to stay at while we sought the Sword," Art says. "Uh, actually, while we're on that subject, I'd avoid her if I were you."

"Why?"

"Well, she's Gaulish, you know. They're all terribly temperamental. And you did sort of show up with the priceless sword of legend that is her family's most secret heirloom? And then threaten to throw it at her?"

"...right," Len says. "Sneak out, gotcha."

"Exactly," Art says. "Now come on, or we'll miss the reflection."

"Reflection?"

"The Lady du Lac's specialty," Art explains, like that explains anything. "Her family tends a - and _please_ don't ask me to explain this - a pocket world in Fairyland made entirely of reflections, and if you travel through the reflection, you can come out through a different reflection. Any reflective surface will do, actually; though for obvious reasons they're known best for using lakes..."

"Huh," Len says. "You know, I know a guy who can do the same. Scudder. Though he goes by Mirror Master nowadays - mirrors being more common than lakes -"

"You can't really get that good a reflection in brass or silver," Art says. "Just my opinion. Though I'm definitely going to pay more attention to being dressed when I shave..."

"You shave?" Len can't resist asking. “Really?”

"I trim," Art says haughtily. "Perhaps your Scudder is a descendant of the du Lacs? Is he of Gaulish extraction?"

"I mean, _I_ certainly find him _galling_ , but I don't think that's what you mean."

Art laughs uproariously at that. "Oh, I'm going to have to use that one," he says, slapping Len on the back. "Well done! Next time I meet with them at council - perhaps in a letter - oh, yes, I _like_ that one – oh, please tell me you have a few for the Romans."

"Mostly that I hear all the neighboring people wish they'd _Rome_ around elsewhere."

"I love you," Art says sincerely, which is not anyone sane’s response on the level of a five-year-old, but in Len’s defense he was being put on the spot. "Deeply. Abidingly. How do you feel about being a Queen?"

"My husband tells me I'm already a drama queen, but thanks for the offer," Len says dryly. It occurs to him a second too late that he doesn't know how well a statement like that fits the tenor of the possibly-homophobic times, but Art did propose to him first.

"Too bad," Art says wistfully. "I mean, don't get me wrong, my advisors already have one in mind for me - Roman girl, daughter of one of their nobles, with some unpronounceable sort of name that sounds like it was intended to be a local name that went terribly wrong somewhere - but how will I know if she's any good at jesting?"

Len rolls his eyes. Ah, yes, arranged marriages; one of the great joys of the past. "You said something about catching the next mirror outta here? Or specifically, about not missing it?"

"Ah, yes! Come, take a cloak and put up your hood so that the Lady may ignore you, and we will go to the lakeside."

The trip is - interesting. Len was gone with the Legends, technically, when Scudder first appeared, so he'd never taken a ride with the man...the man who probably wants to kill him, anyway, given the murderous note they'd left things on. The only reason Len even knows about him is because Barry's little jaunt to 2017 had been filled with all sorts of interesting secrets.

Len likes secrets.

He's also sincerely pissed off that someone as dumb as Scudder got an ability that useful. The man will almost certainly waste it.

If Len ever makes it back to his own era, he’s definitely going to force Scudder back onto his team just to make sure it gets properly used for once.

He might even apologize about the whole spot of attempted murder, if necessary.

Either way, into the looking glass they go - was the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland a descendant of these du Lac people too? - and out the other end they come.

Well. Splash, really.

The Lady's clearly got the hang of emerging looking all noble and dignified, but no one else looks good when they're suddenly knee-deep in water and pond scum.

Len says at much, which gets Art to start laughing, Merle to hide a smile, and everyone else to glare.

"Thank you for your services, gentle Lady," Kay says to the Lady, sounding incredibly stiff. "Please excuse Art. He's still young. And stupid. Mostly stupid."

She disappears without a word.

"That was one of our finest allies, you clod," Kay tells Art, but he has a long-suffering sort of tone to him, almost like –

"You brothers?" Len asks, looking between them. They look nothing alike, but the relaxed posture is unmistakable.

"Foster brothers," Kay says, looking surprised. "Though, if you didn't know, how...?"

"Got a sister myself," Len says. "Love her even when she's driving me crazy. You get to know the look."

That gets a glimmer of a smile from Kay.

Beddy, noticing that Len seems to be making up for his terrible first impression, scowls. "Let's be on our way, shall we? I'll be pleased when we get back, so as best to test the goodwill of our - new friend."

"Don't be such a sourpuss, Beddy," Art says. "But yes, we should get home; it'll settle a lot of people's minds, knowing I've got a sword again."

Getting home, however, means transportation, and in the fifth century, transportation means –

"Oh hell no," Len says. "I am _not_ riding a horse."

"Why not?"

"They're animals!"

"...so?"

"I don't ride nothing that's got a mind of its own," Len says. "Except Gideon. And sometimes Mick, but that's private."

"This is Gertha. She's totally safe," Art says encouragingly, bringing forward an absolute monster of a dappled mare.

Okay, she’s not that tall – all of the horses here are more like ponies than giants – but that’s not the point. She looks like a monster to _Len_.

"Horses don't like me," Len says darkly. "They smell fear."

"And evil," Beddy mutters.

Merle offers Len some sugar. "Feed that to her and she'll like you," he suggests.

Len takes the sugar and eyes Gertha warily. Gerta looks beadily back at him, huffing a little.

"Good horsie," Len says, and offers the sugar slowly. "Good -"

Gerta tries to bite his hand off.

Len flees.

Art collapses laughing.

Even Beddy is having trouble hiding a smile.

"You can ride behind me," Art finally says. "Roach and I will protect you."

"You named your horse _Roach_?"

"Why not?"

"I had a pet rock named Roach once," Len says. "Well, technically it was Mick's rock. He takes care of all the pets. But I named that one."

"I was inspired to name him in a dream," Art says. "Clearly we are mystically bound. Destined to be together."

"I'm still married," Len reminds Art.

"Damn," Art replies cheerfully. "Does he share?"

Len rolls his eyes.

Judging by the unsurprised expressions on Beddy and Kay's faces, and the smirk on Merle's, Art repeatedly proposing to random people is not that rare.

Luckily, Roach actually seems to not mind it when Len is on his back. He barely reacts.

He barely reacts to anything, actually.

"I think my pet rock had more life in him than your horse, Art."

"He's a placid creature, it's true," Art says. "I took him on too many adventures when I was young and - erm - less wise than I am now. He's rather gotten used to anything."

Len laughs, and they ride.

It's horrifically uncomfortable. Why would people ever travel this way?! Much less willingly, when there are cars?!

Not that Len likes cars all that much. He hates driving.

_But it’s better than horses_.

Much to his annoyance, though, he finds that the town they’re riding towards is _not_ their final destination, but rather a stop-over point to collect Art’s gang – which, in an amusing twist, is apparently almost entirely composed of metas.

(Damnit, Len _knew_ he should’ve gone for the Rogues thing back home instead of jumping on the time travel boat.)

There's Kay, for one, who (apparently) has some sort of Ray-like ability to change size: he can grow to the size of a giant (possibly a small giant - he doesn't get much over twelve feet). When he does, he usually uses an entire iron fireplace as his weapon, necessitating gloves capable of resisting heat - which sadly he doesn't have, and eventually ends up burning through all the mildly resistant ones he _does_ have.

Len is able to offer some tips on those, thanks to Mick, and also suggests that Kay experiment with getting smaller rather than larger for better infiltration purposes. Kay seems intrigued.

Old Beddy, for his part, is apparently a small-time sorcerer himself, to the point that he nearly got burned for witchcraft, specifically for either consorting with or fighting a demon. Or something, anyway - no one's entirely sure. It turns out a good part of the stick up his ass is that he's apparently got some Roman blood that he's embarrassed about, from an attempted invasion around his great-grandfather's time a century or more ago, and supposedly there's a curse involving bad luck and interesting lives on anyone with Constantinus blood.

Len guesses that explains the paranoia, though not the willingness to forget about it. Poor guy, though - the ability to see and banish demons doesn't sound like all that much fun.

Len's got a lot less sympathy for Balin, who's kind of a dick, though admittedly well-meaning one. He's always trying to do the right thing - albeit without actually thinking it through - and he's aided in that endeavor by being able to grow a shell or something across his skin, hard as stone and difficult (though not impossible) to pierce.

Len's first comment - probably unwisely - had been to ask if that meant Balin's skin went as hard as his head normally is, but to be fair he was still stewing over the fact that Balin had tried to stab him for nipping down for an early breakfast.

He hadn't even been trying to steal anything that time!

Art had found it funny, at least.

Personally, Len far prefers Perks - officially named Percieval, but since he was raised a backwoods farmer, Perks hasn't quite gotten the hang of all of this knightly etiquette stuff yet, and that means he’s right up Len’s alley. He's got big stuck-out ears and a gap-toothed grin and he shoots beams of light out of his hands.

He's a real ray of sunshine, and Len tells him as much.

Takes Perks one or two tries to get the joke - he's good-natured, but not a natural punster - but he likes it well enough after he does.

Of course, not _everyone_ has meta powers; some of them seem to have some sort of magic item that helps them out, instead. Take the one who doesn’t talk much but who everyone else calls Marrock, a guy short, squat, and furry enough to be a werewolf - and may actually be, given how shifty he gets when people mention the full moon, though Len's been informed that that might also be a sign of being a Druid - but whose more interesting trait is a wand that he claims controls the weather.

Len really hopes that he's not related, even distantly, to the Mardon brothers. If there were ever a pair of people that really, truly didn't need to _also_ be werewolves...

Or take Ywain, for instance. He's already impressive enough - a big black man with an equally big mustache and biceps the size of grapefruit. He's a traveler, originally from somewhere in Africa. But in addition to all that, he's got a necklace (he calls it a totem, but it's a necklace) that lets him absorb the powers of various animals by summoning their spirits. One of the spirits stays outside the necklace, a lion spirit. It talks. Mostly to Ywain, mind you, but audibly and understandably.

Len thinks it's _awesome_ , even if it isn't quite a meta power. Sadly, Ywain can't really explain it beyond the fact that it belongs to a land called Zambezi, a place Len has never heard of and has no idea if it even exists in his era, and that he is to uphold justice with it.

He lets Len try to pet his lion, though sadly it doesn't work, the lion being incorporeal whenever it's not ripping someone's jaw out. Oh, well.

But out of all of them, Len's absolute favorite knight isn't a meta or a magic-item-user at all.

He’s an _alien_.

“Ga-Ain,” the guy – who looks totally human, if six-foot-something people with perfect shining teeth and perfectly styled hair and muscles like a built swimmer look human, which Len isn’t entirely sure of, and also he vaguely resembles Ray which in retrospect makes Len even more convinced that Raymond Boy Scout Palmer isn't entirely a human being – says, sticking out his hand with a grin. “But you can call me Gawain, everyone else does.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Len says. “You sure about that Gawain stuff? I can do Ga-Ain, no sweat.”

Gawain looks tickled pink. “No, no need, please; Gawain is preferable,” he says. “Only my birth family calls me Ga-Ain, really, and we’re not really on speaking terms after they suggested I murder my foster family and take over the world.”

That gets a stare.

“My mother found me in a shooting star,” Gawain explains. “I was part of a convoy of stars, bound for elsewhere, but I was lost due to a terrible storm –”

“You landed in a space ship that got split off from the rest of the group,” Len says, blinking. “Because you’re an – alien?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot you’re from the future,” Gawain says, smiling even more brightly. Everyone had taken that little tidbit with surprising equanimity; Len suspects Merle just _does_ this shit on a regular basis and everyone’s just adapted. “Yes, exactly. Everyone else was in suspended animation, so it took them some time to notice that I was here – my teenage years, to be precise, since I landed when I was about ten or eleven – and then to reach out to me via the ships’ communication systems. I was overjoyed to hear from them at first, of course, but then it turned out that my original people, the Kryptonians, are quite martial and thought that a spot of world-conquering wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

“On your own?”

“I become more powerful as I absorb the light of your yellow sun,” Gawain says with a shrug. “It gives me all sorts of powers – flying, super-strength, even the ability to heat things with my gaze or to cool things with my breath –”

Heat vision and ice breath.

Len loves this guy already.

“But at any rate, I’d already absorbed the code of chivalry from my foster parents, so I told my birth parents to go shove it.”

“Well,” Len says dryly, “on behalf of Earth, thanks.”

Gawain snorts.

"I assume your family took that with the level of grace and dignity that one would ascribe to the sort of person who thinks conquering the world is a good idea?"

Gawain bursts into surprised laughter. "You know, you're the first one to say that outright?" he asks, smiling. "Most people are too polite - even Perks. Yes, they reacted terribly – I was promptly disowned, and they even asked my sister to bury the coordinates of this world deep into the archives that no one would know about it. She's married into the House of El, a fairly prestigious family on my original planet, so she'll actually be able to do it, too."

"Will she?"

"Probably," Gawain says. "But only because I _also_ asked her to do it. She's far more reasonable than the rest of them; we still write to each other."

"Sisters are the best," Len agrees.

"You have some?"

"One - Lisa," Len tells him. Then, on an impulse and possibly a bit of abrupt homesickness, he adds, "She's the best thing ever."

Gawain beams at him. "I like you," he says firmly, as if he’s making a decision. "Want to be brothers?"

Len blinks at him.

"Not by birth," Gawain clarifies. "Blood-brothers. You defend me, I defend you, that sort of thing."

Len arches his eyebrows. "This is sudden," he drawls. "Normally a boy likes to be bought dinner first."

Gawain sniggers.

"What does an alien with superpowers need defending from, anyhow?"

"Rocks."

Len pauses, but no, Gawain seems totally sincere. "Rocks?"

"Glowing green rocks," Gawain says. "They fall in meteorites and give people weird powers, and I get sick anytime I'm near them."

"You know, I think I've seen that before," Len says, thinking of his 1950s misadventure with Savage and bird-people and no Mick. It'd been miserable. "Nth metal?"

"We usually just call it 'glowing rock'," Gawain says dryly. "But that works. So?"

“Have you considered just – avoiding the rocks?”

“I do most of the time,” he says, grimacing. “But there’s a lord with a whole suit made out of them, glowing green – Sir Luthor – we had an encounter, it’s hideously embarrassing, if the bards say anything about me wearing a dress just ignore them –”

Next stop: looking up a bard.

Presumably not of the D&D variety.

"Why me, though?” Len asks. “We just met."

"Because you appreciate your siblings," Gawain says. "And, more importantly, you know what things like radio and radar are."

Len snorts. "Space age man stuck in the iron age?"

"Don't get me wrong," Gawain says. "I love it here, to the point that I refused to leave. But sometimes..."

"You just want someone to watch TV with?"

Gawain brightens. "I have no idea what it's called in your language, but if Merle’s translation spell is working, _yes_. That. So much that. I have a set up for transmissions from home once we get back to the castle."

"Y'know, I _was_ going to explore the castle," Len says, omitting the ‘and steal all the stuff’ part. "But alien TV is definitely a bigger draw. Sign me up."

Gawain laughs. “Well, we’re not far away now,” he says cheerfully, and points.

The castle - more like a giant fortress-town, really - they head towards is very pretty.

Len says as much.

"Thanks," Art says. "She's gotten to be quite bustling of late, though I'm sure you'll find the number paltry, if what Merle says about you is correct – the number of men in the world is steadily increasing, so by your years, they must be everywhere."

"You have no idea," Len says, thinking wistfully of Central. "But still. I far prefer cities to countryside."

“Putting aside the people,” Beddy puts in, “I’m more interested in getting our _guest_ here through the gates.”

Len twists to stare at him, which he thinks is fair given that Beddy has been the number one most suspicious guy out of the whole lot. “You _want_ me in your home?”

Beddy smiles grimly. “The gates can detect bad intent.”

"…really?" Len asked, turning to look dubiously at them. "You have telepathic gates?"

"They read your heart, not your mind," Merle said.

"And without the poeticism?"

"It would not let you pass if your intentions are not pure," Beddy told him, starting to sound irritated. "What is unclear about that?"

"I just want to know if it's more like a mind-reader or a lie detector, that's all," Len said, making a move to cross his arms before realizing he was still on the goddamn horse and lunging to wrap his arms back around Art's waist.

"What's the difference?" Art asked.

"Well, a lie detector reads your body - if you lie, your heartbeat goes up, your body tightens from stress, etc. But if you can keep from being stressed, which you can learn with practice, it'll give a false negative and say you're on the up and up when you ain't."

"Huh," Art said.

"The spell of the gates scans intentions, not the body," Merle said. "...I think. Perhaps I should check."

"Even if it is intentions, what counts as pure?" Len asked. "Say I believed that ol' Art here murdered my mom and that I was totally, fully justified in killing him for it. Let's even go a step further and say that I was off my rocker delusional and I thought that justice was so important that everyone would be okay with me doing it, even Art. Hell, let's say I thought Art would thank me for doing it. My intentions, in my twisted worldview, are pretty damn pure; I think I'm doing good work, and I even managed to convince myself that you will all like it, which means I don't believe that I mean any of you any harm. Would that count?"

They all blinked at him.

"I don't," Len clarified, just in case. "My mom died when I was a kid, totally unrelated – in a different millennium, even. I'm just _saying_."

"Keep 'just saying' things like that," Merle said. "It's a good point. I'll look into it right away."

Art pats Len’s hand. “I knew you’d be an excellent addition to Camelot."

Len laughs.

"What?"

"Wait, your city is _actually_ called Camelot? Like King Arthur Camelot?"

"Well, yes," Art says, sounding puzzled. "That's Camelot, and I'm Arthur, and also the king, so...?"

Len nearly falls off the horse, shouting, "What?!"

Damnit, he _knew_ he should’ve watched Sword in the Stone with Lisa when she’d asked.

(Merle crowing _I told you we were the age of heroes_ doesn't help at all.)

**Author's Note:**

> daughterofscotland requested this literally YEARS ago, for which I am overwhelmingly sorry - I tried so many times to write this and came up with nothing I like. I still don't like this very much, but I've accepted it's never going to happen so I'm just going to post it. Happy birthday and much, much, MUCH belated gift!
> 
> This was originally several chapters, with plans for more plot (yes, the wooden cup is Grail, no, Len has no idea and currently no one else has seen it; using it may or may not convey immortality; the Legends are going to show up and screw everything up as usual; dragons; at least one pun about being Len-o-lot that is going to go down very badly in the historical record; Morgan La Fae and/or Morgause showing up with Mordred; Mick is the reincarnation of Mordred as per my other fic on the subject and putting both incarnations in the same time is a problem, etc.), but...yeah. Anyone who wants to keep going with this is welcome to do so.
> 
> (Also all of the knight powers? actual canonical Arthurian legend powers that just happened to line up surprisingly well with DC characters.)


End file.
